Competition

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Serious Game Design Competition

The ISAGA Design Competition will provide a unique opportunity to showcase interactive play systems and designs. Participants will need to submit a playable game. A jury panel will nominate the best submissions for an interactive presentation at the conference, where a panel of experts chooses the winners. These nominated teams have to send at least one member who will attend the conference. This team member is expected to present the game during the Serious Game Competition Event and take part in the award ceremony. Registration and full attendance of at least one participant from the team at the ISAGA 2019 conference is mandatory.

Quick Facts

Important dates

31st May 2019: submission deadline

21st June 2010: Notification of acceptance

7th July 2019: Final camera-ready abstracts due

Submission

Submission includes:

Up to 6 pages (references excluded) in conference submission format

Gameplay video

Optional but recommended: Executable serious game with 2-page technical requirements and installation description

Submissions are anonymous

Submissions must be made using the conference System

Interactive demonstration at the conference

CFP

Eligibility criteria

Serious game should be new

Games from previous contests that have already received considerable media attention may not be submitted the Serious Game Design Competition

Team work is allowed

Multidisciplinary and multi-national teams are particularly welcome.

There is no limit to the number of teams that may compete from any given university or company.

Game must be functional

This implies that reviewers, jury members and conference attendees are able to play the game or at least a part of the game in order to have a meaningful play experience.

A fully finished game is not required; a playable demo or demo level is sufficient.

Paper prototypes or non-digital games are not acceptable.

Flexibility in terms of game specs

Participants are allowed to rely on their preferred game engines (Unreal, XNA, Unity 3D,…), devkits and libraries.

Games can run on any platform (PC, Mac, console, tablet, PDA, etc.). Participants are responsible for bringing the necessary hardware to run their game to the conference.

Permission is necessary

Before submitting a game, participants must have obtained the permission of all persons or entities having any rights in the game. Please ensure that submissions do not contain proprietary or confidential material.

Preparing and Submitting

Submissions should be anonymized.

Submissions must be made using the ISAGA ConfTool registration system, including the following parts: 1) extended abstract (mandatory), 2) a gameplay video (mandatory), 3) executable game (optional) and technical requirements description (mandatory).

The maximum size of all four parts of the submission combined is 110 MB. If your game submission is large and requires more space, instead of submitting the game itself, submit a text document containing a URL that can be used to download the game, e.g., using a file sharing service such as Dropbox or OneDrive.

Extended Abstract (mandatory):

Content: The submission should contain information about the game’s concept, innovations, target audience, technological and gameplay innovations. For games that are part of a research project, the submission should also include research questions methodology, implementation, and results as well as explain what background research informed their design decisions, The Extended Abstract must also provide a link to the gameplay video.

The video includes gameplay footage. It unambiguously illustrates the gameplay and demonstrates the player’s experience. Keep in mind, though, that at the conference, the game must be playable by attendees; only showing a gameplay video is not acceptable.

Executable game: If the uploaded game executable is large and cannot be accommodated within the PCS maximum upload of 110 MB for all four parts of the submission, please upload a text document containing a URL that can be used to download the game, e.g., using a file sharing service such as Dropbox or OneDrive. Please keep download time in mind and realize that if a game cannot properly be downloaded, it will be excluded from the review process. If you have built the game in Unity 3D, please provide the game as the web player version. If submitting an executable is not possible (e.g., because of dedicated hardware/software infrastructure or specialized gameplay settings), then this part can be omitted, however, obviously, the video play footage will have to demonstrate the gameplay.

Technical requirements and installation document: The document should clarify any special requirements around the presentation of the game at the conference, and should clearly list what resources will be required at the conference, such as tables, chairs, network access, lighting constraints, etc. Additionally, this document can briefly describe any special hardware/peripherals/operating system requirements.

Review Process

The competition will follow a two-step process.

Nomination among submissions

A panel of experts will review submissions and select nominees among the submissions to be presented at the conference.

These nominated teams have to send at least one participant member who will attend the conference. This team member is expected to present the game during the Game Competition Event and take part in the award ceremony. Supervisors are NOT accepted to present the game nor to accept the award. Registration and full attendance of at least one participant from the team at the ISAGA 2019 conference is mandatory.

Evaluation and awards

During the conference, both an expert jury panel and the conference attendees will be able to play and evaluate the nominated game

During the conference, two winning teams will be announced:

Jury award (top game awarded by the expert jury)

Public award (top game awarded by the conference visitors)

Each submitted game project will be reviewed by academic and/or professional experts in game design and development. Nominees and award winners will be selected based on the following criteria:

Originality

Quality

Positioning and articulation of the game’s contribution (determined through Extended Abstract, short gameplay video, and if available, playable game)

Practical information for the nominees

Equipment and infrastructure: nominees should bring along a playable version of the game and foresee the necessary hardware. At the minimum, power will be provided. If necessary, specific infrastructure and equipment requests can be discussed with the Game Design Competition Chairs.

Pitch: nominees should prepare for a brief (5-minute) pitch to present the game to the jury and conference visitors. Additionally, we suggest keeping copies of the Extended Abstract paper at the booth to inform visitors.